In the past week, my morale has changed dramatically. Hallie visited this weekend, which was great because Sarah was in Paris and I probably would have gone crazy without someone in the apartment. We went to see Noah and The Whale in concert at Arches, drank lots of mochas and long island iced teas, and ate some deeee-licious curry at The Wee Curry Shop on Ashton Lane.
I left for London on Monday afternoon feeling slightly depressed. Being abroad can feel a lot like a Beckett play. What am I doing here? Where am I going? What am I seeing? Is there a point to it all? You feel bereft of any structure that would otherwise ground you in a new place, and therefore everything you're doing feels alien and aimless. I just sat there in the lobby of the airport, waiting for my check-in time to arrive at Ryanair like it was flippin' Godot. Even the plane ride felt weirdly existential. Between the bright yellow seats, seedy flight attendants and techno music playing in the cabin, I felt like I was dreaming.
Seemed like I took 100 planes, trains, and automobiles from Glasgow Central to London Liverpool Street, but I finally made in at about 9:00. Navigated the Underground by myself (APPLAUSE) to meet up with Genny, an old homefry, and nearly collapsed into a bowl of pasta from fatigue while catching up in her gorgeous apartment. The next morning, we left for the tube together and she showed me how to get to Westminster to see Big Ben and all that before she went to work. I felt so stressed about visiting all the hotspots in London in so little time, but I think I did pretty well for a foreigner who had only six hours to get to know the city. Went on the London Eye, got some sweet pictures of Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Big Ben, and that bridge that Renee Zellweger walks across in "Bridget Jones's Diary". I was so at peace just riding up in the sky on this ridiculous ferris wheel, looking at all the funny tourists with their loud families and feeling so proud that I wasn't one of them. I think the best traveling is often done alone when you have no one to listen to but your own thoughts. Also you're not so much of an easy target when you're traveling alone. Now, if I had brought my fanny pack and visor...
Next stop was the Tower of London, which, although pretty to look at, was extremely crowded and ultimately not as great as I thought it would be. Apparently I was traveling at a peak tourism time, as the last week of October is when everyone has their fall break. I must have waited in line for a ticket for at least forty-five minutes, if not more. I couldn't tell if I was moving towards the booth or if the booth was moving towards me. It felt like I hadn't moved an inch. Tour guide was funny, made some pretty good Anne Boelyn jokes. I only walked through about half of the tour because we didn't seem to be going into any of the towers, which I had thought was the point of the Tower of London. I broke away to go into the House of Jewels, saw the Queen's bling, but it wasn't that exciting. Again, I was stuck in a huge line, shuffling through a maze of velvet ropes and feeling frustrated. Even the towers themselves weren't that cool because the crowds just made it so hard just to read the captions next to the artifacts, and captions are what I live for.
After a somewhat disappointing visit to Tower Hill, I went back to Liverpool Street where I caught my train to Norwich to visit Sarah, a dear family friend. Sarah was best friends with our German au pair back in the day when I was four-years old, so naturally we had a lot of catching up to do, especially because she had had a baby within the past year. Seeing her was the best part of the trip, definitely. She arranged to have the whole family meet for dinner at her mom's house out in the country, which couldn't have been more perfect since I haven't been in someone's house since early September. I found myself surrounded by people I love and who love me, dimpled children, and cats! Oh how I've missed cats!
Sarah hasn't changed a bit. She is still the giggly, effervescent nineteen-year old I remember her being, and it's strange to think that she was younger than me when she started babysitting us. We celebrated an early Guy Fawke's Day with fireworks in the back yard after dinner, and while all the kids were ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the rockets shrieking into the night sky, Sarah linked arms with me and said, "Isn't it strange to think of these kids as the next generation?" She and I seemed to both harbor the same amusement in how quickly the years seem to pass. Twenty is a strange age. Tuesday night, I didn't know whether to prance around the lawn with the kiddies or sit back in the corner, shivering in my winter coat. I'm in this generation limbo, and it was particularly difficult to sit around the fire afterwards with a glass of wine while Sarah and her sister talked about child labor, knowing just how close I am to possibly having a child of my own. I'm sure when Sarah was nineteen and sunbathing on our lawn and doing collages with my sister and me she wasn't thinking of having a baby in twelve-years time, and I certainly wasn't thinking of a timeline like that when I babysat this summer, either. But even twelve years passed within the blink of an eye. Scary stuff...
It was hard to leave Sarah the next morning, but I just know I'm going to remember visiting her for the rest of my life. I hope it won't be so long until we meet up again.
So despite the brevity of my trip, I think I made the most of it. It's amazing how easy it is to navigate a new city if you just think two-dimensionally, as if you're just a little dot on a map. I felt like as long as I had a map of the underground, I could do anything--it was so empowering. Coming back to Scotland was also interesting, because for the first time, I thought of it as my home. When you travel during your time abroad, you inevitably end up calling the place you're studying home, as it's the place you always return to. Today Sarah (roommate Sarah) and I made hair cut appointments together and walked down Byres Road afterwards to get crêpes. It felt so natural to me. After feeling so lost for so long, I finally feel like I belong here, like there's structure, such as streets, and institutions, such as school, that I can mold my life around. I'm drawing my own map of my life around what's already here, and I feel so much stronger for it. I can't believe there's only a little more than 50 days until I leave! I remember Michelle Obama sending out a mass email what seemed like three weeks ago, reminding us that the election was in fifty days, and here is it only five days away. We'll see how I feel in six days: I'll either be drowning my sorrows or toasting my country.
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